Stathis:
> Although you make an exception when the copying takes place gradually
> inside your own head, switching atoms in your brain for new ones
> obtained from environmental raw materials, and excreting the original
> atoms.
There is no exception because the two cases are not equivalent when you look at
them from the identity of a process (consciousness is an example of a process,
not
an example of atoms) perspective.
You believe that brain process-interruption causes death. But how can
you be sure that your brain processes have not been surreptitiously
interrupted at some point?
I can't be sure which is why I wouldn't claim that I'm definitely the same person
as the person with my name 5 years ago. I *probably* am.
Would you say that you can be sure because
you would just know - you would have felt something if it happened,
and you didn't feel any such thing?
I can't be sure. The copy doesn't experience what original experiences just like
you don't experience what your neighbor experiences right now and vice versa. If
you died, your neighbor would not share your "experience" of death.
Or would you say that it might
well have happened, since you would be unaware of it, but that there
is no reason to think that it has happened?
It may have happened.
If the latter, would you
be very upset to learn that this interruption really has happened, to
you or to a family member?
The only person that should be upset is the one no longer alive, but if he's not
alive, he can't be upset. As a duplicate process and a current instance I would
worry more about not getting terminated myself.
Objective observers care only about the type of a person and whether it's
intantiated, not about the fate of its instances (because, frankly, they're not
aware of the difference between the type and an instance). But since I know better,
I would be sad about dead instances. The point is whether I'm sad/upset or not
about a fact not does change that fact.
H.
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