On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:41 PM Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:50, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> On 7/22/2019 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >> Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can be >>> replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this, questions >>> about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has been pointed out >>> several times. >>> >> >> The substantive problem is a philosophical one, since by assumption in >> these debates the copied brain is identical by any empirical test. >> >> >> But what if, as seems likely to me, it is theoretically impossible to >> copy a brain to a level that it undetectable, i.e. it will necessarily be >> possible to distinguish physical differences. Now these differences may >> not matter to consciousness, or they may imply only a brief glitch at the >> conscious/classical level, but we know from Holevo's theorem that the >> duplicate can't be known to be in the same state. >> > > I feel that I am the same person today as yesterday because I am pretty > close to the person I was yesterday, even though if you were to look at me > in enough detail, even using simple tests and instruments, I am quite > different today. It seems unreasonable to insist that a copy of a person > must be closer to the original than the "copying" that occurs in everyday > life. > Dealing with this particular worry is one of the strengths of Nozick's 'closest continuer' theory. Bruce -- 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/CAFxXSLRMwU0NiM_x5jvxhv9M-Z5m0DPOjgL6%3D6E%2BYPv99Qv%2BpA%40mail.gmail.com.
